Page 27 of Cold Case Discovery

“Why not?” she replied.

“Because I can tell it’s going to tick me off.”

She shook her head. “It’s better if we don’t stay with you, Jack.”

“Better for who?” he returned, just barely holding on to that thread of calm.

“Everyone involved,” Chloe said, and her expression was set, her voice firm, but there was something hiding underneath that cop mask. “Certainly better for you guys getting the answers you deserve.”

“Did Laurel put that in your head, or is it your own wrongheaded thinking?”

She scowled at him, but he wasn’t about to relent.

“Jack—”

“You and Ry are guests of the Hudson Ranch until we have some answers on the threats against you. I don’t care what anyone, including you, has to say about it. That’s what’s happening.”

“There aren’t any threats against me. That snakecouldhave been for Ry. Whatever my dad was pulling with those dolls happenedsixyears ago. I’m not in any danger.”

“I’m glad you feel that way. I don’t.”

“And Jack Hudson’s feelings trump all else?” she demanded, but the heat wasn’t there. She was just trying to pick a fight.

He was feeling a bit like letting her, but he took a deep breath. Reminded himself that whatever that chest of dolls was or wasn’t, it had hurt her. Deeply enough that he’d seen all her usual masks fall.

He didn’t want to add to that hurt. He never wanted to be even a contributing factor to her hurt.

But he had been. Not like this. Not deep, childhood wounds. But the nature of everything they’d been for the past year had not always been easy, and he knew...no matter how careful he tried to be, that she’d been hurt by the secret nature of what they did together outside of work.

And he knew she still believed it was for all the reasonsshesaw when that wasn’t it at all. Maybe he’d have liked her to have given him more credit, to admit to herself that wasn’thim, but... That wasn’t very fair of him. He saw it more and more clearly as time went on, as little things about the way she’d grown up came out.

How she trusted anyone or anything, saw the good in anyone,laughedwith people was beyond him. He was inaweof her.

Even as she kept going, determined to have that fight he couldn’t muster up the anger for.

“Did it ever occur to you that I can handle me? And I can handle Ry? And I can handlethis?” she demanded, working up to mad so she didn’t have to be sad, scared, hurt.Clearly.

It killed him how easy it was to see through it, even as she kept on.

“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t need this Jack Hudson, king of the world, ‘I’ll protect everyone and everything the sun touches just because I slept with you’?”

It was the strangest out-of-body thing. To watch her get mad as hell, to watch her gear it toward him, and not find himself being reactive at all. No, it was like all those walls he’d carefully erected for so long just crumbled to dust. Not even dramatically. Just slowly and silently to ash that flew away on the breeze.

“Well?” she demanded, her cheeks pink with anger, her hands on her hips and everything about her combative.

But he saw that little kernel of vulnerability she was trying so hard to protect, and for the first time in his life, he found himself handing over his own without even thinking about it.

“Did it ever occur to you that I’m in love with you?”

Chapter Nine

Chloe knew what he’d just said. She’d heard it. He’d sounded out that word, spoken it. Right here.

But she couldn’tunderstandit. She couldn’t put together theknowledgewith the reality of Jack Hudson standing there saying...

No.No. He was...

No.

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